Black Pussy Sets the Record Straight

Controversial Portland psych-rock band, Black Pussy, clears the air with a candid sit-down interview exclusively for Article Cats. What is the controversy about? A name. There’s been vocal outcry and a change.org petition to have them change the name of their band, citing sexism and racism. Article Cats staff writer, Zara Zhi, spoke to two of the main members, Ryan Mcintire and Dustin Hill, in order to set the record straight – what they say may surprise you.

Zara Zhi: Do you think all the media attention has changed the way you view your music careers or the choices you’ve made?

Ryan Mcintire: I don’t think it’s affecting the inspiration, but it’s making us more conscious of the elements that are springing up against us. It’s making us research these movements and what’s happening within elements of culture.

Dustin Hill: I think it’s a great thing. I wish people would see the positive side. Hopefully people come to the conclusion that it’s a rock and roll band. Rock and roll bands use “black” a lot and they’re a little offensive sometimes – black Sabbath was offensive in its day. The conversation that’s happening is an important conversation – looking at these conversations is making me research what people are processing – we’re having daily conversations about it now. Like today, I said I believe there’s a cultural weapon being utilized against us at this moment because of all this weird bickering about things that really shouldn’t be affecting the common man.

ZZ: What do you mean by cultural weapon?

DH: I mean like a cultural weapon as in “hey, let’s make all the slaves focus on this stuff that’s really stupid and really doesn’t pertain to them, while we do all this shit over here.”

RM: It’s sort of like this one branch of this tree of mass destruction.

ZZ: So, like a weapon of mass distraction?

DH: What people are distracted with is fascinating to me. There are real, very important issues, and people never bring them up. I actually saw a new movie coming up called “Waste” or “Food Waste” that’s about how we waste 40 percent of our food, I don’t know if it’s just this country or the world, but it’s about how supermarkets throw out shit. That’s an important issue.

But art is it’s own thing. To me, art should sit in it’s own protected bubble – I really don’t give a fuck about what anyone thinks of the band name. When it comes down to it, it’s my art project – and art is protected to me – I’m just doing my art. If you’re offended by it, that’s part of art. If you’re trying to destroy me on the other hand, that’s like cultural Marxism, we’re moving into fascism and that’s a whole other issue in a sense. But it’s highlighting these things about the world we live in now.

RM: We have conversations about interesting observations – in the 80s you might say the right wing was more PC and was trying to censor music and art and movies – but what’s interesting now, it appears as though the PC is on the left. Progressives are more of the mouthpiece of what is politically correct, what is sanctioned, what is okay and what is taboo.

And it’s good to talk about – what is the line? What does it mean to have a line? And I don’t think our band name is that close to the line.

Ryan Mcintire (left) and Dustin Hill (right) of Black Pussy

DH: But it’s interesting. I love the conversation, and art should spark the conversation. This wasn’t our intention, but it’s part of art. So I’m like “okay, this is part of being an artist.” I never planned to be in this weird political thing – that wasn’t a part of the band. I want to have a good time, I want to write very pure, and just do it. Just do it for what it is. I’m kind of over politics – I have this saying, “believing in politics is the same as believing in religion.” It used to be exciting when I was younger, but now I’m bored. It’s totally controlled, the game is fixed, and it’s rigged. I think a lot of people don’t understand that, so they’re into the bickering – if they just stood back and said, “Wait a minute! We’re all just pawns. What are we doing just bickering amongst each other?”

ZZ: True. As journalists, we’re writing about beach bodies and Caitlyn Jenner, but people aren’t paying attention to things like the TPP.

RM: Exactly! Because that effects us in the long run a whole lot more than whether a man can become a woman, and become accepted by society by being on the cover of Vogue.

DH: Our new click bait of the week is the chick thinking she’s black.

RM: Sure! That NAACP girl.

ZZ: Oh yeah, Rachel Dolezal.

DH: If people opened their eyes, they’d realize there’s a war on for our minds and a lot of people don’t realize that. That’s the heavy thing for me, but that’s the great part about this happening to our band. Let the discussions begin; let the real discussions begin.

RM: Hopefully the truth will be like cream and rise to the top.

ZZ: But regardless of how low society has fallen, you do realize a lot of people are offended by your name?

RM: That’s contentious – when you say “a lot” that’s debatable.

ZZ: Yeah, it is. But to the people that are, a line has to be drawn somewhere – do you think that maybe your name crosses the border of what’s offensive?

RM: Crosses? No.

DH: I don’t think our name is offensive in the slightest because the name is ambiguous, the words are ambiguous. If people had the power to use the dictionary, you’d realize it’s ambiguous.

ZZ: So, what would you say your line would be with words being offensive?

DH: I have zero line. There is zero line for words – words are just sounds you make with your mouth. They’re just words. Maybe I grew up in a different time, but my mom taught me, “sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you.” Maybe since parents are afraid of the CPS taking their kids away, they’re raising them [kids] spinelessly.

Because words do not hurt – I can call you anything – what’s the worst you can think of, what’s your line? And say it aloud. Does it really hurt anyone? Like a word does not hurt. Like intention, even intention with words, you can be like “whatever”, and that takes strength of spirit. I understand that certain people aren’t as strong as others and I’ve had my moments of getting beat up by words, and feeling hurt by words, or how people talked about me – from a little kid that hurts, but then you learn. And then you learn it doesn’t really do anything, no one’s gauging your eyes out or anything, no one’s incarcerating you for no reason. It’s freedom of speech.

If we start making like, “oh no one can say these words,” that’s infringing on the concept of freedom of speech and that’s what you do for a living. Not even a living, but for your art. It’s what I do for my art. I should be able to say whatever I want, there should be no words off limit to any humans. When we start doing that, it’s like, “Oh, we better not draw cartoons of Mohammed, because someone might kill me.” Once we start having that kind of fear, we’re not human anymore, we’re censoring ourselves; and then when do we draw the line? And who makes those decisions of what words?

ZZ: But sometimes words can be really hurtful and laws are built upon words. Leaders use words to express their motivations – it’s about the context of it. Hitler was a great wordsmith and used it to his advantage. So sometimes words can be hurtful, and change things, and make movements.

RM: I think you’re talking about ideas. Ideas make movements, words are a way to try and get that idea out. Ideas are voted upon by human beings – are we into this idea or not? It’s not to deny the power of expression, because words are an element of how we express ourselves.

ZZ: But words are basically just ideas being expressed, so it’s the thought behind it.

RM: That’s the intention. Intention and ideas are sort of like living in the fourth dimension almost – like our imagination and what our intention is.

DH: It’s like this, when you’re with a significant other and you say, “I love you,” it’s not about the words, it’s about the intention behind it. Because anyone can say I love you, but do you mean it?

RM: So a racist couldn’t even say one of the “big” words, he could just be a racist and say it in a nice way – but his intention could be more negative than someone using one of the taboo words.

ZZ: speaking of intention, a lot of opponents say that the name “Black Pussy” has neo-colonialist connotations because Black women have been historically raped and objectified throughout history. The Rolling Stones song “Brown Sugar” kind of echoed that, I know you guys mentioned that song, what was your reasoning or intention behind using that as your inspiration?

DH: I think the first thing that should be addressed is that all women of all cultures have experienced that, so to put it on to one group and make them special amongst women shouldn’t be done because all women have experienced that throughout history. If you go back far enough, it was brutal depending on the time and location – shit was going down for everyone.

ZZ: But we’re talking about this specific case.

DH: If we’re just going to talk about Black women, my name doesn’t necessarily pertain to them – only if you choose it to be. But there’s nothing negative about that name “Black Pussy.” Even if you want to relate it to a black woman’s genitalia, there’s nothing before or after it to make it negative. But if you want to relate it to the Rolling Stones, obviously, you [Ryan Mcintire]… take that.

RM: Well, we’ve been clearing it up for a little bit. We found out the working title was “Black Pussy” [“Brown Sugar”] after that was going to be the band name.

DH: When I found out that song was named “Black Pussy,” what I read was that it was an anti-rape, anti-slavery song and that was wrapped in a satire. I basically hit the jackpot in a band name because I like the words together, but when I found out it had this beautiful meaning behind it – anti-rape, anti-slavery – I thought it was pretty cool. I had no idea I could get a band name so cool, but I’m actually being attacked for the reverse of the intention.

RM: That’s because it’s being taken at face value. So those lyrics at face value are intriguing, controversial, and taboo and you can read a lot into them, but we have always thought of it as a satirical song. And that had to do a lot with his romance with an actress/model who was a black woman whom he was totally in love with. We talked about this in a statement; it seems strange that he would write that song in the midst of a love affair with a black woman, and he said he wouldn’t have the balls to write it now.

DH: I think he said he even changed the lyrics live.

RM: But it’s ironic because they’ve played that song at every single live show of their entire career, and humans love that song! Everyone who sees them wants to hear that song regardless of the heavy lyrics.

DH: Everyone’s going to be offended by something all of the time. If you want to be that thin skinned, you’re always going to be offended. There are racist bands, artists, and people throughout the world. But we’ll talk about racist artists and bands: that’s they’re intention, those are the lyrics, they’re skinhead/SS bands, and it’s weird that those bands aren’t being attacked. I never hear about them, I never read about them and they’re real Nazi bands. But even though I know those bands exist, they don’t offend me because it’s their freedom of speech and freedom of art and who cares?

It’s not like they have huge hits. If it was the biggest band in the planet, I would be blown away, I’d be like, “I need to move.” But it’s not; it’s a very small, tiny little blip of the population into that shit. They’re working themselves out; they’re not going to exist much longer. I think racism amongst us common folks is being washed away. People in power, and in the media, and all that crap keep it alive so we bicker amongst ourselves.

We should always know history, but how many times do you hear in mainstream media – it’s click bait again – we hear about black and white all the time. But what about the Native Americans? 90 million Native Americans murdered. What about the Hawaiians? There was a lot of shit that went down in Hawaii. What about the Japanese during the forties in America? We could go on and on and on. We’ve moved on, but when the media keeps it alive they’re just stoking the fire and it’s not necessary; because amongst us common folks, we’re all pretty good with each other.

But if I was a business owner in that kind of power, I need to distract all of us so I can do all this shit to swindle you. We’re being swindled constantly, and it’s just a part of the distraction. And I’m not saying those issues are real – those issues are very real – we don’t need to dwell on it now, because none of us were a part of it. We need to remember it, always, but it doesn’t need to be talked about all the time. I don’t need to talk about my grandfather dying everyday, or so and so blowing his brains out everyday. I don’t need to re-bring that up everyday. Right now, this one moment is all you have – it’s beautiful – it’s beautiful amongst all colors and sexes. At least in my world, I have respect for everyone, unless you disrespect me and then it’s on the individual basis. I don’t care what color you are, if you disrespect me, there’s going to be consequences. I think we’re fine, but the cultural weapon is being utilized against us to keep us dumb.

We can move beyond this if we really open our hearts and realize there aren’t colors, we’re all spirit beings. That’s the important thing. We’re not different species, we’re the same species; we hang out; I think we’re all pretty cool. I think the respect for women is gaining every day. I see it – most people I know and encounter look at colors and sexes as equal. I could careless if you’re a woman or black or yellow or whatever. I think most people think and feel that way. But there’s a pressure being pushed to create guilt in men towards women. Guilt for race – I don’t have guilt – I don’t have guilt for what color I was born and no one should have guilt. No one should feel guilt or feel bad for what color or sex they were born. It’s a very short time we’re on this planet and it’s very special. We should try to be happy and not hurt one another and help one another and LOVE. I know it’s stupid hippie shit, but it’s really like, “Come on, just fill your heart with love we’re cool.”

RM: I think that’s hinting at a deeper thing – being okay with being alive and being yourself and healing. I think as humans we always need to go through these rebirths of the soul in a sense. From people that I know and in my own experience, is that psychedelics plays a very important role in allowing us to deal with this reality and to be okay with who we are at like the most infinitesimal bit of it – who we truly are and how we’re going to navigate this three dimensional space for our life.

ZZ: You mean like taking acid and stuff?

Dustin Hill (left) and Ryan Mcintire (right) of Black Pussy

RM: Yes, but no. I mean like shamanic healing. In this culture, there are no rights for the young to be able to grow into adulthood through an extreme event. History and culture all previous to us have had this rite of passage for young people – to be able to come close to death and come out the other side clean – which is going through your ego. So all this medicine: psilocybin, DMT, LSD…all this medicine’s ultimate goal is to push through the ego and come out the other side cleaner than you were before.

DH: And that’s a great point. I think people who are offended, they’re ego is large. And that’s the spirit ego. When people are offended by little things, they’re ego is out of balance.

RM: Insecurities play a huge role in how we interact with one another and the media love to manipulate people’s insecurities. You’re fat, you’re too skinny, you’re the wrong color, your teeth aren’t white enough, your hair is too curly, You look too ethnic, you’re dicks too small or big, as a black woman you need to look more white, as a white woman you need to look more black, as a gay man you need to speak less feminine, you’re too masculine. So there’s all this pressure from all these different angles to try and conform and the human spirit doesn’t want to conform like that.

We need to be who we are – we’re all freaks and geeks – we’re all who we are and it’s about being okay with who we are. So that way you have such a strong center that no asshole is going to knock you off your balance. There are assholes out in the world, absolutely, but the way you deal with assholes is you shun them and cut them off. They don’t get to affect your day-to-day life – you kind of have to build an asshole force field to navigate.

DH: Which we’ve had to deal with. We’re just like bopping around the country for years; touring, doing our thing when all of a sudden we were attacked by the assholes from my perspective. A lot of the things that came out were so skewed in a wrong way. You can hate my band or band name, but how it initially started created this incorrect thing.

RH: Yeah, it’s faulty logic: “I find the band name offensive and racist. That equals the individuals in that band are sexist and racist.” It’s faulty logic and doesn’t work that way.

ZZ: So what’s the most ridiculous response you’ve had from people?

DH: I think the most ridiculous thing came from an article out of Australia, where they took lines out of an interview with “what he really means is this…”

RM: I guess, misinterpreting. People have just said ridiculous things. We should say that people have said ridiculous things in defense of our name as well. It’s not lost on us that people for and against our band are idiots. They can be.

ZZ: Would you say people for your name are right wing extremists?

DH: I don’t think we need to use “right” or “left”. They’re just reactionary. People are assholes. One person says this and another person says this. It’s the ego. It’s very childish.

RM: There’s that lowest common denominator of arguments of our band name, but then there’s all other strata.

DH: But then there’s great points made. I can’t really say I see any point of our band name being sexist and racist. If you Google “black pussy” right now, the first thing that comes up is porno – so shouldn’t people be attacking the porn industry?

RM: A lot of people’s brains go to the slang version of it. But if we’re playing devil’s advocate – you can say, “what’s wrong with black pussy? Isn’t that a beautiful thing?”

ZZ: Again it’s about intent. And the fact that you guys are representing the Portland music scene, some people might get the wrong idea about that.

DH: All they have to do is check us out; you’ll see that black women come to our shows too.

ZZ: Why did you use Doug Stanhope’s comedy routine on your Facebook page when he refers to the Vagina as “pink hole” and “cunt”? Isn’t that fanning the flames?

DH: I think the main reason why we put it up is his spiel on words. His routine kind of went into “pink ugly hole”, “vagina”, or whatever – that’s his art – but we’re utilizing it. There is a point that pertains to us about what he posted about words.

RM: His ultimate point is that an adult who is attacked by words sees the ridiculousness of that and is able to move on quickly and not hold that into their being and be hurt and affected by them.

DH: And no matter how crass he got, it shouldn’t affect people who are spiritually strong. And I like [Doug] Stanhope, I think he’s great, I think he’s pushing that envelope and it doesn’t offend me in anyway, doesn’t mean I’m going to talk that way. But that’s his bit, his art, and I think that was the whole point of us posting it, “If you’re offended by our band name, you’re really going to be offended by this.”

RM: It could act as a filter. If a person hears that and is super offended, they’re probably not going to like our music.

DH: They’re probably not going to like rock and roll in general. Rock and roll is not for everyone – it’s always been different. It’s just the way it is. The intention of the band name is pure. I had these group of songs and I wanted something that felt 70s and sexy and that’s exactly what it is. Even Ryan [Mcintire], when I first said the name, he was like “I don’t know…” but I sold him on it. This is a really good band name – there’s power – and I couldn’t believe it wasn’t in use. I don’t think it’s offensive; it’s not like anal cunt – that’s more crass. I don’t think “Black Pussy” has a crass tone to it in the slightest from my perspective. I might think it’s tacky, but I don’t think it’s crass or mean.

RM: If you want to talk about intention, we don’t intend it to be a put-down or negative. People have said we benefited from people being hurt in the past by using this name and I just can’t buy this argument.

ZZ: Well, the media gave you this publicity, it’s not like you sought it out right?

RM: No, we were on tour and in the middle of the dessert and we found online that there was a woman in San Francisco that had started a petition on Change.org. We were just in the middle of our trip and then it snowballed in the media from that moment. So we weren’t looking for that, but we’re also not going to shy away from that. The most important thing is for us to own it and if we need to explain it, we can and have a discussion about it.

DH: I’m not afraid to say the band name no matter who asks. The only time I might question it is if it’s a little kid. I tell old people, black people, yellow people, I’m not afraid to tell you what my art project is.

RM: It should be noted there’s a lot of bands with the name pussy in it. Perfect [Pussy], Nashville [Pussy], the girls from Russia – Pussy Riot – the main common denominator with the movement of “pussy” bands is that they all have females in it, so society kind of gives them a pass.

ZZ: But they’re living it – they know what it’s like. It’s cultural appropriation – if you’re not Native American, but you wear a headdress, you’re appropriating their culture, but you never had to live through what they had to go through.

RM: That word is a slippery slope, because you have to ride the line between inspiration and exploitation.

DH: Are we only allowed to do things from our culture? I’m a quarter Native American, but I have the Haida tribe tattoo on me? I’m not a part of their tribe, but another tribe.

ZZ: When people see you in the street, they don’t see Native American, you don’t get treated differently from that. You don’t live your life as a Native or on the reservation.

DH: Not all Native Americans live on the reservation. And the reservation is not Native American life. Native American life was stolen from them. It is right now, but it sucks. They’re fucking tigers trapped in the cage and they’re totally still being utilized and abused. That’s a real issue we should be talking about.

ZZ: But you do understand that you’re not a Black woman, you don’t know what it’s like to be a Black woman, and so it’s different when you use those words?

DH: The words are ambiguous and that’s the great thing about those words. And I think Pussy Riot’s ambiguous.

RM: So Meredith Graves named her band “Perfect Pussy” and we reached out to her, but she doesn’t like our band, she called us racist. When do we win the cultural war of the pussy being taboo? Does it need to be a woman to do it first? I reference the Amy Schumer Show: she asked the network not to censor the word “pussy” and they agreed. All these bands named “pussy” – maybe in the future these words won’t have that cringe affect.

DH: I think pussy is beautiful. Pussy is sexy. In the bedroom, that’s the word of choice. It’s sexy, hot, and exciting. I think cock is sexier than dick.

ZZ: So would you change your name to black cock then?

DH: I wouldn’t change my name.

ZZ: That’s written in stone, you wouldn’t change your name for anything?

DH: It would take some mucho dollars, and even then I would question my integrity. If someone came to me with X millions, I would be selling out. I thought about it, what would it take for me to change my name? I think of like $5 million coming my way, but I don’t think I would do it. It wouldn’t be fair to the universe giving me these ideas.

RM: I think it would be great to see Black Pussy on mainstream.

DH: We have, we were on the X Games.

RM: I think it would be neat for culture to have a big band with the name pussy in it. To hear Jimmy Fallon say the name pussy on network TV. But you give a word more power than it needs by refraining from using it.

RM: I reached out to him because I felt it was in vein of a lot of click bait articles that we had been reading. I felt it was relatively misinformed and we were lumped in with all these other cultural instances like Die Antwoord, Tarantino, and the Red Skins. It made me want to reach out to him and have an actual conversation as opposed to just reading an opinion I felt wasn’t very correct.

We would like to extent a heartfelt thank you to Ryan Mcintire and Dustin Hill for giving Article Cats this opportunity to talk candidly and publish their views. With special thanks to fellow AC writer, Gabriel Valdez, as content coordinator.

What is your opinion of the bands name? Does this interview change your perception of them?

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Zara is a freelance writer and filmmaker who has worked for numerous magazines and news sites. When not coming up with puns or writing screenplays, she enjoys having blind children read to her and donating plasma TVs.
Follow her on Twitter: @zarazhi